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BBC: Well, Ms. Gallo, is there some reason why the artistic profession is overwhelmingly male?
G: It’s who wants to be paid for it, who wants to get hired for it, who’s artistically active, you know, it’s more of a guy thing.
BBC: …
G: You know, it’s unreasonable to expect that equal numbers of men and women will be attracted to every sphere of human endeavour. Science has shown that. Or something.

Eh… don’t look at me, I’m more into the ElfQuest end of things. Okay, the bodies are still kinda ridiculous, but the characters — male, female, young, old, Wolfrider, Go-Back, Sunfolk or Glider — each is a individual, with strengths, weaknesses, and all kinds of flaws and quirks and personalities, and each and every one is welcomed and embraced, even Winnowill, the Big Bad of several story arcs, is presented as more than just evil. And, um, as far as the elves go, this is a case of “everyone is bisexual” — sharing pleasure with a loved one (or two, or three, or four, or more) is a Good Thing, regardless of gender, “marital” status, or societal niche.

Clothing is, yes, kinda skimpy and revealing, especially among the Sun Folk (who live in a desert), but it’s always environmentally appropriate (e.g. The Go Back’s always wore heavy furs, because they lived in the freakin’ mountains).

What always bothered me is that almost none of the women on fantasy novel covers could have been the mothers of the heavy-boned muscular male heroes on those covers. You want to see a woman who can bear those sons? Just watch the movie Rushmore. Max’s homeroom teacher after he was kicked out of Rushmore is such a woman. I knew her and her family and her kids back when the movie was filmed. Her kids were three barbarian gods and one tall mistress of basketball.

The women in fantasy art cannot be from the same communities as the men in fantasy art. Their mothers and sisters must surely look like the teacher from Rushmore. I think there could be many ways they could be presented as sexually desirable, but why don’t we see it?

Probably because that would make the woman seem like an equal of the hero, and for some people that would be a turn off. Not sure why, maybe Roosh could explain it to me, but I’m not really interested. I’ll stick with my barbarian queen fantasies.

lol, have you seen the covers of romance novels? Do you think they are “sexist” toward men? I’m not sure why depicting women or men in sexual provocative apparel or positions is “sexist.” Nor do I understand why sexualizing humans is sexist… Humans are sexual, right? If we depicted men always wearing lab coats, would we be creating intellectual objects out of them? My idea of “sexism” is when people are degraded with stereotypes of gender norms, like saying something about women being less intelligent than men.

O P needs to have a look at Escher girls, for a start. Twisting female characters into spine-breaking, impractical(for fighting) poses purely to show their tits and arses and leaving them vulnerable from lack of proper armour, all done to appeal to the hetero male gaze… is pretty degrading and off-putting to many women, especially when you consider that this styling is what represents the vast majority of women characters in comics.

Here’s where you’re going totally wrong: Sexualised depictions of men and women where sexy art is expected, such as the covers of romance/erotic novels, does not compare to the hyper-sexualised depictions of women in comics where they are supposed to be fighting! Context, yo. And hell, some sexiness would be absolutely fine, just not EVERY damn time a woman character is in the panel, no matter what she’s doing and how impractical it is.

Ummm…if guys are the ones who grew up with it, and that’s why they’re in the field, then why is it 50/50 in the schools? Oh, wait, I’ve got a “girl brain”, so maybe I can’t, like, understand math or statistics or science or reality…

Science classes are mostly women, too, but men dominate the field. If it were truly a “guy” thing, women wouldn’t be seeking these degrees. They’d be in Home Ec or English. Women want to be scientists, artists, mathematicians, journalists, etc. That’s why they go to school for those fields. But they don’t show up in huge numbers later…can someone say…obstacles?